Chapter Text
Thankfully, Clint’s app didn’t ping for the rest of the day, and his phone didn’t ring at all that night, though he’d half-expected it to. Every few hours he’d wake and tap the glass screen just to make sure he hadn’t slept through any new Stark heir emergency.
On the bright side, it’d given him time to get his shit together for the elder Stark’s party, stuffing an array of suits and collared shirts into a carry-on. He even snuck in a nap to make up for some of last night’s lost sleep, though he definitely didn’t break even.
But Clint was used to running on very little sleep, even if he didn’t like to.
By the time he’d rolled his carry-on down to the lobby, there was already a pile of luggage waiting by the back door. Pepper stared down at her phone from over her designer sunglasses, biting her lip and looking more frazzled than Clint had ever seen her. Not a single wrinkle nor hair out of place to tip him off, but there was frantic energy bubbling out of every chew on her lower lip.
Her gaze swept around the lobby before landing on Clint.
A half-dozen heel clicks on the sparkling tile and a nervous smile were her only introduction. “Do you mind going to check on Darcy? I’ve had JARVIS page her, but I think she’s found a workaround and shut him off in her suite again.”
“Like father, like daughter,” Clint sympathized. “Of course.”
“Your handprint has been authorized for her suite door — just in case I forgot to mention that. As far as I can tell, that’s still connected to the network.”
“Probably wouldn’t want to go snooping in there anyway,” Clint joked. “Might lose my head.”
Pepper’s half-smile was the only confirmation he needed.
He made his way up to her floor without incident; the Tower’s AI not saying a word as it ferried him up to the residential floors. All he had time to do was silently hope that this wouldn’t end in another screaming match.
Instead, he found Darcy’s apartment door ajar, two full-sized pieces of luggage sitting just outside the threshold.
“Darcy?” Clint announced, sliding through the door tentatively as he eyed every corner and doorway.
He didn’t get a response, but he could hear muffled murmurs through the bedroom door. Was she on the phone or something? But then Clint heard the slightly metallic tones of a particular AI, and he stopped dead in his tracks, trying to make out the rest without alerting her to his presence.
They hadn’t exactly left on the best terms.
“Why hasn’t he picked up? He always picks up by now.”
In the time he spent listening to Darcy Lewis talk (and boy, there was a lot in his short tenure), he’d never heard this tone, not even when she was plastered and pleading. The desperation and worry dripped off each word, and if he listened hard enough, he could hear her heels scraping against the floor methodically, pacing.
‘I apologize, Miss Lewis, but Mr. Stark still appears to be unavailable. Would you like to leave a message, perhaps on a secure server? That way it will appear on some additional devices?’
Clint’s stomach twisted, realizing he’d walked in on a very personal conversation that Darcy definitely wouldn’t have made him privy to if she’d known. He was a half-second from turning on his heel and walking out the door when her shaky voice rang out.
“Of course, his suits,” she choked out as if the word was acid on her tongue. But she softened in the next step, sighing and adding, “Yeah, tell him to call me.”
Clint thought that was it, and was just about to head towards the door to fake an entrance and announce himself properly when he caught the last, quieter bit.
“And tell him to stay safe.”
‘Of course, Miss Lewis.’
And Clint couldn’t help but wonder exactly what Darcy meant by all that. He retreated a few steps anyway, pushing the door open to elicit a creak before calling out again, “Darcy?”
Her hand tightened on her bedroom door’s handle, but she caught herself quickly. “Y-yeah, yeah. I got the hint. I’m going.”
“I’ll get your bags and meet you out in the hall,” Clint murmured, giving Darcy a wide berth as she flitted around the open-concept space collecting last-minute odds and ends.
Clint let the front door to the unit click behind him as he wrangled the luggage handles into his grip. It was better to let her have a moment to gather herself after what had clearly been an emotional situation. Even he, as emotionally stunted as he’d grown to be, could feel his insides twist at the pain in Darcy’s tone.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Darcy sniped unconvincingly as the elevator door sprang open.
As they descended dozens of floors at a time, Clint could see familiar headlines on Darcy’s phone, scrolling in and out of view. Vanko and Hammer. Stark in Monaco. Darcy’s thumb pulled down on the screen to refresh a keyword search over again.
How much did she know?
Maybe more than him, Clint decided, especially based on her silence.
That left him wondering if he should be more worried about this trip than he was. And despite all of his lived experience up to this point, he landed on, ‘How bad could a party be?’ But, to be fair, he was a little distracted in his unexpected fretting over Ms. Lewis, who was now on Twitter scrolling through keywords she probably shouldn’t.
Was Darcy Lewis the kind of self-destructive force that willingly read comment sections? Even Clint knew better than to search his own name on the internet, and he wasn’t anything close to a public figure.
Pepper was already on her way to the airfield by the time they got downstairs, leaving Clint and Darcy to commute in their own private car. Malcolm greeted them with an enquiring smile before asking from the side of his mouth, “What did you do?”
All Clint could offer was, “I don’t think it was me this time.”
“Ah, Stark.”
So this was a common occurrence then.
The silence continued through the car trip, with Malcolm and Clint up front shooting looks between each other at even the slightest hitches in her breath. She’d slipped on some oversized sunglasses which hid most of her expression. The wobble of her lower lip gave her away in his rearview, and Clint’s stomach sank every time her fingers slipped underneath the glass to wipe at a stray tear.
Darcy grabbed her backpack and bolted out of the car as soon as Malcolm stopped it, rushing to greet Pepper, who remained on the airfield asphalt while workers loaded the luggage onto the plane.
A hand on Clint’s forearm stopped him in his tracks.
“Listen, I know she’s what many would consider a tough client, but Darcy’s going through a lot. And, I guess I hope you don’t take it personally, or whatever.” Malcolm rubbed the back of his neck. “Stark is a… sore spot for her. I’m sure you’ve noticed. But she could use someone in her corner, even if she doesn’t always act like it.”
Clint considered him, wearing a suit like his and a smile that was kind, if not exhausted. Malcolm had been Darcy’s driver for at least a year, according to the files Clint had perused, and he trusted his gut judgement, even if they’d only known each other a couple of days.
“I think I’m starting to see that,” Clint settled on, clapping his own hand over Malcolm’s. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Good man.”
Malcolm beelined to the luggage, easily hauling it over to the plane as Darcy and Pepper talked. Not wanting to interrupt, Clint boarded the plane and found a dozen plush leather seats scattered around.
Anything beat the military feel of a SHIELD plane, so long as he wasn’t in charge of flying.
Clint slipped out his tablet and headphones out of his luggage before tucking it away for take-off, eyeing the open door for any sign of her. Another minute and he’d poke his head out, but he figured they deserved their moment of privacy before they were thrust back into the spotlight’s glow.
“Ms. Lewis. Nice to see you,” one of the flight attendants greeted.
Clint averted his eyes at break-neck speed, comforted when Darcy and Pepper’s voices carried up the steps. He expected Darcy to pick the seat furthest from him, shocked when she plopped down in the one next to his back corner seat in full view of the door, cockpit and flight crew. He wasn’t a nervous flyer by any means, but it never hurt to be strategic — at least according to everyone in his life.
Though on second thought, maybe that’s because most of the people in his life were Secret Service, SHIELD or spy-adjacent.
Maybe Kate was right about him needing to hang out with the residents more.
Pepper was closest to the pilots, being talked through spreadsheets and speaking notes by one of her three assistants. Was Darcy avoiding her, or did Pepper not give her the answers she’d been looking for?
Or maybe she didn’t want to be next to her dad’s ‘were they or weren’t they’ for five a half hours.
Fair point, voice of reason.
“Is that a hearing aid?”
The question followed hitting cruising altitude, and Clint could bet Darcy had at least a partial fear of flying, but he’d never call her on it. And, as for Darcy’s question, he had almost forgotten he was wearing it — it was a part of him at this point.
“Yeah, yeah, it is.”
Darcy twisted in her seat to face Clint. “Is it rude to ask what happened?”
“Probably,” he could help the soft laugh that slipped out, “but I don’t mind. I lost it in an accident.”
That was too nice a way to put it, but he wasn’t about to air his own trauma on the job.
“Were you young? When it happened, I mean…”
Darcy had never seemed so unsure of herself in his presence. Long gone was the snarky tone and biting comments, replaced with something curious and soft. And the ever-present, ever-stupid optimist inside him wondered.
Was this the real deal peeking through the facade?
Clint didn’t see any point in lying, but was hoping to keep it surface-level. “The first time, yeah.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“Y’know, they have some pretty sweet hearing aids in production at R&D that my Dad’s–” Darcy’s voice broke off, eyes dropping to her hands, already knotted in her lap. She shot a look at Clint, as if expecting him to call her out on it.
He wouldn’t. Clint knew better than to push, especially when they were thousands of feet in the air with no escape. And it would have been fine if they’d left it at that, drifting into silence and maybe even into sleep.
But Darcy clearly had more to say. “Have you met him? My dad?”
“For about thirty seconds at my last interview,” Clint replied, bobbing his head.
“Lucky,” she muttered, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “That’s more than I’ve seen him in the last three weeks.
He thought back to that conversation, remembering just how stern Stark had been with him, how he’d brushed it off as nothing more than a scare tactic. He didn’t seem like a man who didn’t love his daughter.
But what would Clint know about a healthy father-child dynamic?
“Are you and your dad close?”
Clint was left laughing again, “Hell no.”
The silence lasted all of ten seconds.
“Aren’t you supposed to say something like, ‘And I turned out okay!’ to, like, reassure me or something?” But Clint didn’t even get to answer, his unexpected answer sending Darcy spiralling. “I mean, not even my dad wants to be around. He’s been dodging me for months, and…” She broke off into a shaky breath.
Clint hadn’t been expecting his perception of Darcy Lewis to be flipped on its head tonight, finally seeing the person and not the headlines.
As much as people liked to assume that Darcy Lewis had always been like this. She didn’t exactly come out of the womb dancing on tables. In fact, there was a time that <i>no one</i> knew her name beyond the occasional pap shot in some rag or another. Not until they started stalking Tony to get the first photos of her, and someone in marketing recommended he make her the face of their innovation research labs.
The more Clint found, the more he read, the more he realized: It had all started after Afghanistan, lots of oversights and flubbing showing his best face to the board so epically that he ruined his own daughter’s chance at an anonymous life without a second thought.
It was a special kind of selfish act. Add the disappearing act, and Darcy was practically grieving for this man.
How was Clint supposed to respond to that? ‘Thanks, I’d like to personally beat up your dad,’ probably wasn’t the way to go. Words felt hollow.
“I’m sorry, Darcy.”
“I just wish he cared enough to be around, especially after…”
Especially after he almost died. Especially after her mom. Even Clint could fill in the blank on that one, and part of him, a larger part than he wanted to admit, wanted to sock Tony Stark on her behalf.
Careful, Barton. You’re getting attached.
“Sorry. I… You probably don’t care. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for having feelings, Darcy.”
“Depends on the feeling,” she shot back, the corner of her lip dipping down.
Clint didn’t know what to say to that, brain cycling through options before landing on the one that felt right. God, who was he? Feelings?!
“You don’t have to apologize to me, and not just because of my tightly worded contract and NDA,” Clint offered with a small smile. An olive branch. “If you ever need or even want someone to talk to, I’m here, okay?”
Darcy eyed him warily before nodding and leaving it at that. At some point, she slipped in some earbuds and slid her hood over her hair. Clint was long lost to his inbox, reading through the day’s media reports and coverage of the family, scrolling through tips the public relations team had sent ahead of take-off.
Clint gave Darcy three hours of uninterrupted sleep before succumbing to his bladder, gently guiding her head off his shoulder and back into her seat.
Her hair smelled of honeysuckle, and he was a little ashamed of how much he enjoyed filing away that insignificant fact for later. Darcy was exactly where Clint had left her, still asleep. He settled in for the world’s shortest nap.
“No. No, no, no,” Darcy repeated the word on a loop under her breath, and Clint could feel the way her body twitched beside him. “Dad, no!”
Waking with a shout, Darcy sat upright in her seat, head whipping around frantically as if searching her surroundings. It was nothing short of terror.
“Darcy. Darcy, it was a dream, okay? It’s Clint. You’re in the plane. We’re safe,” Clint placed one tentative hand on his shoulder, and she sunk into it.
Clint swept his eyes across the other seats, but none stirred, and Darcy was struggling to catch her breath.
“We’re going to breathe together, okay?” He exaggerated his shoulders, watching closely as Darcy tried to match. “Good. Great breaths,” he soothed, but his brain was already tallying up all of his observations. Too many darting eyes or too much sway and he’d have to call a medical event. But for now she looked alert and aware, which was a good sign.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Everyone gets nightmares, Darcy.”
“Not like mine.” Her voice was quiet, fingers knotting. “I got banned from sleepovers.”
“By other kids?”
Kids and their parents could be cruel. And Clint could only imagine what happened in those upper-crust private schools she probably had access to.
“By my Dad.”
The more Clint learned about Tony Stark, the more he wanted to deck him. “It’s really no problem. You’re not banned from plane sleepovers yet. You’ve got a long way to go.”
Darcy’s lip curved up at the corners. A little more like herself, to Clint’s great relief. “Is the sleeping on your shoulder part also not a problem? Or should I break out my neck pillow?”
Clint couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up, regretting it as the first sign of movement in the row in front. At least they’d had their moment of levity, for all the bullshit she’d been putting him through. But also to remind him that anything less than professional wasn’t an option on this contract.
And he needed this job.
Still, he sat as still as he could as her head slipped onto his shoulder. One of them would get sleep, and Clint was kind of glad it was her.